PRAIRIE GROVE -- In a special meeting Wednesday, April 28, Prairie Grove School Board accepted the resignation of former high school principal Ron Bond and created two academic coaching positions to assist teachers.
Bond resigned as high school principal last year and moved into a teaching role at Prairie Grove Junior High. He is ending his 20th year at Prairie Grove schools, 18 of those as principal, and his 34th year in education.
"I'm excited for him," said Reba Holmes, superintendent of schools.
Holmes said Bond came into her office at 3 p.m. that day with his letter of resignation, saying he and his wife, Farmington teacher Carla Bond, had both made the decision to go ahead and retire.
"They decided that working a couple more years wasn't worth it," Holmes said. "He was excited to start a new chapter."
Bond began his education career in Texas and spent five years in Farmington and two years in Gentry before coming to Prairie Grove.
The board also approved a recommendation to hire Cindy Love as district literacy coach and to transfer Hannah McDonald from her position as a junior high math teacher to a district math coach position.
Love has worked for Prairie Grove schools previously and currently is a literacy specialist with Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative in Farmington.
Pete Joenks, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said both academic coaches will work with teachers in all grades but for the first year, Love will concentrate on elementary and middle school teachers and McDonald will mainly assist teachers in the upper grades.
The new positions will allow the district to have an "additional pair of eyes" to assist classroom teachers, Joenks said.
Many times, teachers go to professional development workshops but are not always sure how the information gained from the workshop transfers in reality to the classroom. The academic coaches will be able to help model this instruction for the teachers, Joenks said.
"Our teachers want to be the best that they can," he said.
Additional days will be added to the contracts for Love and McDonald and both will receive a stipend. Love's salary will come from federal covid-relief funds and her contract will be year-to-year. The expectation, Holmes said, is that anticipated student growth will allow the district to move the position into the school's operating budget in the next couple of years.